


no longing for the sun

by justjoy



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Gen, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 03:26:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14803490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justjoy/pseuds/justjoy
Summary: “If this is your way of telling me to get out more, I swear,” Shaw mutters under her breath, reaching over to unlock the door.(Or, Sameen Shaw’s unterrible, pretty okay, not-too-bad week. Post-S5, canon compliant.)





	no longing for the sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keita52](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keita52/gifts).



> (title from that quintessentially shaw song, future starts slow)

**i.**

Shaw tells Fusco about the Machine coming back online, of course.

His face as he processes this is priceless, really, and Shaw wishes she’d thought to record it as he asks, “Cocoa Puffs too?”

Shaw’s made sure to get nicely drunk before even starting this conversation, so she only shrugs.

“Hello, Lionel,” says Root, a little tinny from the speaker of Fusco’s handphone. “Miss me?”

“…not particularly,” he says, eyeing the phone like it’s suddenly turned into a venomous spider, before turning it off and wrapping it in the layers of his discarded jacket.

Shaw could point out the dozens of other phones and miscellaneous devices still scattered around the pub, much less the earpiece she has on even now – she really could, but then again she’s hardly one to talk about being logical over the Machine’s and Root’s existence anyway.

Whatever, Shaw decides, and wonders if she should get another plate of chips.

(Much afterwards Shaw chews ponderingly on a lone chip and says, “I guess Root’s the Digital Interface now. Since she’s… in the cloud now, or whatever the hell this is.”

“Sure,” Lionel responds slowly, sliding her drink away before offering to drive her home.

Shaw responds in turn by reacquiring the glass with extreme prejudice, and downing both their drinks before taking him up on that offer. It’s too cold to walk back to the subway at this hour, even for her, and bloody Uber drivers never knew how to shut up anyway.

“I could get you a self-driving car instead.” Root pauses, a crackle of silence over the earpiece. “A _literally_ self-driving one.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Shaw answers aloud, and rolls her eyes at the sideways look Lionel gives her.

Root pouts audibly. “Why, I just thought you’d like a ride, Sameen,” she whispers, and Shaw coughs, choking on thin air.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

**ii.**

Shaw’s parked across from their latest Number’s office building (or rather, she’s _in_ a car that’s parked there, but details) when there’s a knock on the passenger window.

She glances over to see a familiar face peering through the window.

Her hair’s pulled up in a messy bun that had probably taken much more effort than all appearances would suggest, but that is most definitely Zoe Morgan looking back at her, eyebrows half-raised in an obvious question.

“If this is your way of telling me to get out more, I swear,” Shaw mutters under her breath, reaching over to unlock the door.

Root hums thoughtfully. “I just thought you could do with some company. Well – some _other_ company, I mean,” she adds as Zoe opens the door.

Shaw huffs a breath of profound annoyance, but shakes her head when Zoe looks over in askance. “Not you,” she says shortly, gesturing at her earpiece.

“Ah,” Zoe says, looking almost bemused. “This happen to be the same friend of yours who called me?”

“Probably,” Shaw answers quite honestly – she knows that Zoe was around when Finch and Reese first met Root, but it’s not something she ever had much reason to know about in detail before, and she’s hardly going to ask now.

(She’s also aware that the Machine uses different voices sometimes when the situation calls for it. It’s the only way they’ve been able to upkeep the various identities necessary for the work, since Shaw doesn’t have any near the same level of enthusiasm Finch had for juggling three dozen fake covers like some bizarre nerd circus act.

It’s always Root that talks to her, though.)

Out the corner of her eye Shaw spots someone heading for the building opposite. Too tall to be their Number, but he’s the first one she’s seen with a matching lanyard looped around his neck, and Shaw has seen more than enough trouble to recognise it in the nervous dart of his eyes.

She doesn’t snap a picture. They’d reestablished access to a good half of Harold’s many accounts now, at least, because his contingency plans were the type that could survive even a robot apocalypse, to no one’s surprise. But fancy zoom lenses still rank pretty far below buying more servers in terms of getting back up to some kind of proper operating capacity, so Shaw carries only a compact camera in addition to her handphone, and it’s too far to get a good shot with either one from here.

Root can probably pull up the lobby surveillance feed later if they need it anyway, she decides.

Shaw does make a note of the time, though, as she grabs a bag of pretzels from her backpack and opens it. “I’d have thought you would be in some fancy business brunch at this hour. No fires to put out among the city’s richest today?”

Zoe laughs lightly, and reaches into the bag when she holds it out. “There’s _always_ something to put out, it just scheduled for a late lunch instead. Imagine my surprise when I got a call on my rare morning off.”

Right. Shaw doesn’t roll her eyes, but it’s close – if Zoe Morgan does surprise any more than Shaw herself did, she definitely hasn’t seen any evidence of it.

She crunches somewhat viciously on another handful of pretzels instead. “Let me guess, your mysterious caller gave you an equally mysterious address?”

“Happens about as often than you’d expect, in my line of work. So I followed the directions, and…” Zoe shrugs elegantly, slanting a faint smirk at Shaw. “Fancy finding you here at the end of it.”

“Yeah, _fancy_ that,” Shaw grumbles, but it’s unexpectedly hard to maintain a proper grudge in the face of Zoe’s easy grin. “Don’t expect me to pay you for your time though.”

No wonder John had liked her so much, Shaw finds herself thinking, and scowls even harder. Dammit.

“Of course,” Zoe agrees, looking entirely unfazed. “I’m hardly on the job now, am I – unless there’s something I don’t yet know about?”

Shaw blows out a breath, sends a tiny puff of dust flying off the dashboard. Maybe she should leave the card of a decent car washing service pinned to the steering wheel before she goes.

Beside her Zoe is quiet.

“No,” Shaw says finally. “Not on this one.”

Zoe’s a smart lady. There’s no need to mention what else there is – or had recently been, rather – that she might not know about. “Whatever happened… wasn’t pretty, was it.”

Shaw blinks hard, stares out the window. “It’s over, at any rate.”

Zoe’s breath catches, just a touch louder than usual. “Well,” she finally says, “you obviously know how to reach me if you need me. At the usual friends-and-family discount, of course.”

Shaw looks over – Zoe’s eyes are red but dry. Nothing a little makeup can’t cover. “Yeah?”

“Well.” Zoe tilts her head, her smile regaining that edge of sharpness. “Only if you bring the dog.”

Shaw snorts. “Only if _you’re_ off-duty, then. Unless you want to turn up to that lunch covered in dog hair.”

The corner of Zoe’s smile twitches. “Fair enough,” she concedes.

( _Another thing you learn in my line of work,_ says a text later that night. _Very few things are ever really over._

Shaw doesn’t reply, only snaps a photo of Bear with his tongue lolling out and sends that back instead. “Stop giving my number to random people,” she mutters aloud.

“Well.” Root’s voice somehow conveys a shrug just from the words alone. “No one asked you to reply.”

Shaw pulls a face at her handphone camera.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

**iii.**

She’s walking away from the house of their Number’s ex-boss’ former chaffeur-slash-sometimes-chef (long story, don’t ask) when the payphone on the next street corner rings.

Shaw hadn’t even _known_ that they still had payphones in neighbourhoods like this one, posh enough that even Harold might’ve even thought twice before buying a house here – not because of the price, mind, but he’d never been one to like ostentatiousness to match.

Anyway. Shaw spots the surprisingly unremarkable phone booth but doesn’t hurry to it, only lengthens her strides a little.

The phone’s still ringing when she arrives, of course, and habit makes her lean slightly against the side of the booth rather than turn her back on the street, however empty it might be.

Shaw picks up the receiver. “I know I said no to the cochlear implant, but there’s no need to ring me just to make a point, y’know,” she says without hesitation.

“I dunno, I thought it’d be nice. Just like old times, you know?” Root says, but before Shaw can figure out what the hell _that_  means she’s already continuing. “Anyway, I thought you’d want to be standing still for this, at least.”

Her eyes search automatically for the nearest camera, and she raises an eyebrow at it. “What, I win the lottery or something?”

“Well, if _that’s_ something you’re interested in…” Root answers, but even the lilt of teasing sounds slightly distracted. “I finally finished going through the last of the data from when ICE-9 hit.”

“I remember, you said that it’d scrambled all your timestamps or something?” Shaw frowns slightly, before realisation hits like a shot to the gut. “Did you – ”

“Yes.” Root doesn’t even wait for her to finish the question. “Harry’s alive, Sameen.”

Shaw suddenly understands the unevenness in her voice. Feels it herself, even.

“I found footage of him heading to the airport,” Root continues, the words coming out in a rush. “Plus a matching withdrawal on one of his older accounts. Harold Martin’s.”

Of course. Because Harold, for all his brains, could be the most sentimental of idiots sometimes.

“He’s gone to Italy, then.” _To be with Grace,_ Shaw doesn’t need to add. (At least she damn well hopes he has, or she might just go to Rome or whatever specifically to kick his ass. Before dragging him to Grace’s doorstep herself and knocking on the door.)

“Most likely,” Root agrees. “Though seeing as most of the airlines are still floundering over their sudden throwback to the dark ages, further details will have to wait.”

Shaw doesn’t argue. It’s good as confirmed, for her, but she understands why Root – why the Machine would want to be sure. “What about John?” she asks before she can stop herself.

Root’s quiet for twenty whole seconds, which is already an answer in itself, really.

Shaw waits anyway.

“His last transmission was from the same coordinates that the missile was aimed at, minutes before it hit, and I haven’t been able to find any records of him past that point,” Root finally says, voice soft. “I’m sorry, Sameen.”

_No news is no news_ , she’d told Lionel. And that’s still true, except – well.

For all that they’d been opposites she and John had been more alike than anything else. And Shaw already knew what she’d done, what she’d chosen at that bloody Stock Exchange, the same choice she’d make again.

Possibly that’d been their problem all along, Shaw thinks as she looks up, blinking hard into the glare of the afternoon sun. They’d all walked into this ready to die.

They just hadn’t been prepared to lose each other.

(“I bet that last call was to Harold, wasn’t it,” Shaw mutters under her breath, and Root doesn’t answer, which is just as well.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

**iv.**

Shaw arrives at the principal’s office to find Gen sitting outside, a streak of rusty brown against her white uniform sleeve. Dirt, not blood, Shaw checks with a swift glance.

The mulish expression on Gen’s face still brightens immediately at the sight of her, though she doesn’t call Shaw by name, instead flicking a glance towards the blonde woman sitting behind the desk.

Smart kid.

Shaw gives her a nod, and heads past her to extend a hand to the woman – secretary to the principal, confirms the plaque on her desk, and _really_ , only Finch would be able to find a school where even the principal needed a secretary.

“Samantha Partridge,” she says, manner as brisk as the blazer she’d swapped her usual leather jacket out for. “You called about Gen?”

“Miss Partridge.” The woman’s severe bun is even tighter from this close up, enough to give Shaw a headache just from looking at it. “Indeed. We take disciplinary matters very seriously here at Fitzhugh Quinnell Preparatory, as I’m sure you’re aware, and your ward here was involved in an altercation with several other students earlier.”

Shaw resists the urge to look back at Gen, and only says flatly, “Was she.”

The secretary’s minute frown intensifies, clearly not having gotten the response she expected. “I don’t know what values your family espouses, Miss Partridge, but we will not tolerate such behaviour from our students. Any further incidents would easily be grounds for expulsion.”

Shaw’s voice goes even flatter. “I don’t think so.”

She doesn’t know what strings Finch pulled back then to get Gen in this school midway through the school year, but she’s willing to bet that whatever it was probably involved a metric crapton of money.

From the shift of the secretary’s expression, she’s either aware of this, or just too accustomed to dealing with people with more zeroes in their bank balance than letters in their name. “Be that as it may – ”

Shaw’s almost reluctantly impressed by her persistence nevertheless, but she’s really not in the mood for this right now. “Does Gen need to see the principal or not?”

“She’ll be required to have a meeting with the school counsellor tomorrow,” begins the secretary.

That sounds exactly like _no_ to Shaw’s ears, so she coughs pointedly. “If that’s all, then, I’d like to talk to my ward now,” she says, and hightails it out of there with Gen in tow before there’s any answer.

It turns into Gen tugging at her hand instead quickly enough, turning down a corner until they’re in a corridor of empty classrooms.

Gen watches quietly as she jimmies the lock of the third door on the left, which opens onto an immaculately well-kept music room that’s conveniently soundproofed.

“Shaw! You really came!” Gen says once the door’s closed behind them.

Shaw eyes her expression, excitement mixed with disbelief, and sighs, stretching out an arm. “C’mere,” she mutters, and Gen promptly rushes over.

She’s put on quite a bit of height, Shaw can’t help but notice, and the curls in her hair have straightened out into waves. It looks good on her.

“Let me guess,” Shaw says not quite dryly, when a full minute’s passed and Gen still hasn’t let go. “You picked the fight intentionally just so I’d come, didn’t you.”

“The number you gave me for emergencies wouldn’t connect,” Gen says, half-muffled by her blazer.

“Right, sorry ‘bout that, we had some pretty major issues a while back,” Shaw answers, before the implications register and she reaches for Gen’s shoulders. “Wait. You got into trouble?”

“Not really? But one of the girls in my class had someone blackmailing her parents, I think, and I wondered if you and Harold could help. So I tried calling, and…” Gen peers up at her, a little uncertainly. “You’re not mad, are you?”

Shaw gives in to the urge to ruffle her hair. “Of course not. Wouldn’t have given you that number if I didn’t want you calling me, would I?”

“Okay.” Gen nods, her arms tightening around Shaw’s waist before she finally lets go. “I was really worried. I’m glad you’re alright, Shaw.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Here, I’ll give you the new number to call,” she adds as she reaches for her handphone.

(They’d never given out their actual phone numbers, of course. But unlike the contact details they used for temporary covers, the ones they gave Numbers redirected back to their phones through some overly complex system managed first by Harold and then the Machine – until Samaritan had come along to fuck everything up, of course.

Shaw herself had only passed the one number to Gen. But she knows that John had handed them out like candy, and even Harold had given out a few himself, so she makes a mental note to tell Root to check if those numbers are still connecting.)

Gen’s still tapping deftly at her phone as she asks, “Are you free this weekend?”

“Assuming no one decides to try murdering anyone e–” she manages to say before Root hums meaningfully from her earpiece, and Shaw rolls her eyes. “Yes, I’m free. Most probably.”

“Good.” Gen pockets her phone, and grins. “Can we have a sleepover?”

Shaw blinks. “Look, I don’t know what they teach at this posh school of yours but _I’m_ not twelve – ”

“Thirteen!”

“ – not thirteen, I’m a responsible adult. Who doesn’t do sleepovers.”

“ _Have_ you ever done a sleepover?”

Shaw sighs deeply, and ignores Root’s laughter in her ear. “…no.”

“Great, we can figure it out together then!” Gen cheers. “And I want to meet your dog, too. I didn’t get to meet him properly the last time.”

“No more getting into fights, then,” Shaw says only half-heartedly. “I hate being called to the principal’s office.”

“Well, _you_ get into fights all the time,” Gen points out.

Shaw can’t really argue with that.

(Heavens only knew how Harold had survived raising a tiny supercomputer terror, she thinks, if this is what semi-older-sistering one child is like. No wonder he’d been so stressed all the time.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

**v.**

She’s standing there in the afternoon sun, Fusco’s arm slung across her shoulder, staring up into the blindingly bright sky – except that the missile swerves sharply to head towards them – no, _past_ them to a faintly smiling Root, standing just out of reach dressed all in black.

“Shaw,” she says – except that no, her mouth hasn’t moved and the tone’s all wrong, terse instead of smiling and Shaw jerks awake all at once, to the voice echoing just slightly off the subway’s arched roof. _“Sameen!”_

“Okay,” she mutters, breath drawing up short and shallow, then again, louder. “Okay, I’m awake.”

The wireless speaker beside the bed winks on, a circle of blue light. “You alright, sweetie?”

“I’m fine,” Shaw says, though she grimaces when she feels the cold sweat that’s soaked into her back.

(It still isn’t a lie, either way – if nothing else she’d stopped dreaming of being back the simulations. Reality might have gone to shit, but at least now Shaw remembers what it is most of the time.

Seeing the sorry charred remains of Decima into the ground personally had probably helped with that.)

She seriously considers getting up to change for a moment before flopping back down. Not like she hasn’t slept in far worse places, anyway.

Fifteen minutes later she finally gives up on sleep as a bad job for the night.

Shaw muffles a heartfelt _ugh_ in the sheets – time for a laundry run tomorrow, probably – before pushing herself up.

She grabs a bottle of water and downs half of it in a long gulp. “Hey, Root.”

“Yeah?” Root asks, from the bank of monitors on the desk. Behind her the Machine hums, whirrs on steadily.

The lights flicker on as she walks. It’s – almost nice down here in the quiet of night, now that the worst of the damage has been repaired, but Shaw looks at the shadows cast long across the subway tile and asks, “Ever think about moving house?”

“Get our own place, that kind of thing?” Root laughs. “Why, I never thought you’d be the one asking to move in with me, honey.”

Shaw rolls her eyes. “No, I was just thinking of someplace where the closest delivery isn’t Chinatown.”

Root’s voice curls with amusement. “Well, I’m sure I can manage _something._ Though I’m afraid Harry never did prioritise the availability of nearby food places when he was buying property.”

_Just tea shops, probably,_ Shaw’s about to say, when there’s a soft whine from behind, and she turns to find Bear whuffling softly at her.

She tosses the empty bottle into the bin and kneels down to scratch behind his ears. “Up for a late night movie, big boy?”

“Should I find something in Dutch, then?”

Shaw glares at the nearest screen, now scrolling through what looks suspiciously like Netflix all on its own. “Do that and you’re not getting any popcorn.”

“You don’t _have_ any popcorn,” Root points out, very correctly. “And you finished the last bag of chips yesterday, so.”

“I could always get some,” Shaw grumbles under her breath as she straightens and goes to gather the blankets and cushions off the bed, piling them on the subway bench across from the largest monitor.

Snacks _and_ laundry run it is tomorrow, then.

Bear jumps up and settles in beside her like a fluffy furnace of warmth, and Shaw waves a hand imperiously before pulling the covers up around them. “Come on already.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Root says, low and close, as the lights fall around them.

(Shaw wakes up the next morning with a vague recollection of Root snarking constantly at the movie’s plot, plus the world’s worst crick in her neck.

It’s still the best sleep she’s had in a long time.)

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> post-reveal notes: also [on tumblr](http://presumenothing.tumblr.com/post/174994433608/), come say hi! (other post-finale ficlets [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13342005) and [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13366920).)


End file.
